Video: Reflecting and skewing artwork

In addition to moving, scaling and rotating, Illustrator has two more transformations, something called reflecting or mirroring and also something called sharing or skewing. Let's take a look at both of those. Many times when drawing artwork inside of Illustrator that needs to be symmetrical, it's easy to just draw one half of a piece of artwork, like I have here, and then use the Reflect tool to automatically create the other part of it. You can find the Reflect tool grouped together with the Rotate tool inside the Tools panel.

In Illustrator CS5 Essential Training, author Mordy Golding explains the core concepts and techniques that apply to any workflow in Illustrator, whether designing for print, the web, or assets for other applications. This course includes a detailed explanation of the elements that make up vector graphics—paths, strokes, and fills—and shows how to use each of the Illustrator drawing tools. Also demonstrated are techniques for combining and cleaning up paths, organizing paths into groups and layers, text editing, working with color, effects, and much more. Exercise files accompany the course.

Reflecting and skewing artwork

In addition to moving, scaling and rotating, Illustrator has two moretransformations, something called reflecting or mirroring and also somethingcalled sharing or skewing.Let's take a look at both of those.Many times when drawing artwork inside of Illustrator that needs to be symmetrical,it's easy to just draw one half of a piece of artwork, like I have here, and thenuse the Reflect tool to automatically create the other part of it.You can find the Reflect tool grouped together with the Rotate tool inside the Tools panel.

Remember that, by default, Illustrator puts the origin point at the center of the artwork.However, I want this artwork to reflect from one of the edges here, so I get theappearance that I am looking for.So one thing that I could do is simply click once on this Anchor Point to movemy origin point right here, and now what I'll do is I'll click and drag, andI'll hold down the Shift key, and I can see now that I can create artwork thatfills up the other side, but before I release the mouse, I'm also going to holddown the Option key.So with the Shift and the Option key held down now, I'm not only constrainingthe proportion, but I'm also creating a copy at the same time.

Now when I release the mouse, I get the version of the artwork that I'm looking for.Alternatively, I can press Command+Z here to undo this, and I can Option+Clickon this point, and that brings up the dialog box here for the Reflect tool.It gives me a helpful preview and in this case here, I want to flip over the Vertical axis.I can click on the Copy button, and now I get the result that I am looking for as well.Using the Reflect tool can also be helpful in creating shadows.For example, if I have this piece of artwork right here, I am going to goahead now and select it,I can use the Reflect tool to create some kind of a shadow.

I'll press the O key on my keyboard, which is the keyboard shortcut for theReflect tool, I'll click once over here to define my origin point, and thenI'll click and drag to basically create the reflected area while holding downthe Option key. This creates now a copy and maybe I'll change the Color of it to gray.So while this does create a nice shadow, it may not seem very realistic becausesometimes a cast shadow is skewed somewhat.So to perform that action, I'm going to select the artwork right here andunderneath the Scale tool is something called the Shear tool.

I can click over here, once again, to define an origin point and then click anddrag to basically skew or adjust that shadow, to get it to look just right.So I can use the combination of the Reflect and the Shear tools to createthe effect that I need.

Q: Despite clicking the rectangle icon on the toolbar, as shown in the video, the other tool shapes are not accessible in Illustrator. The rectangle is usable, but the star, ellipse, etc. are not, and do not appear anywhere in the toolbar. What is causing this problem?

A: These tools are grouped together, so to access them, click and hold the mouse for a second until the other tools appear. If that isn't happening, reset the Illustrator preferences file. To do so, quit Illustrator and then relaunch the application while pressing and holding the Ctrl+Alt+Shift keys. Once the Illustrator splash screen appears, release the keys and that will reset the preferences file.

Q: In the video “What are vector graphics,” the author states that if he creates a 1 inch x 1 inch Photoshop file at 300ppi image, there are 300 pixels in that image. Is that correct?

A: This statement is by the author was not totally correct. If the resolution is 300ppi, it means that there are 300 pixels across one inch, both vertically and horizontally. That would mean you'd have 90,000 pixels in a 1 inch x 1 inch image at 300 ppi.

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Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
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